Old 12-24-21, 08:05 AM
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JackJohn
WingsToWheels
 
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Join Date: Jul 2020
Location: France
Posts: 227

Bikes: Italian, French, British

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The rider, the wrencher, the collector… who are you?

I recently met a guy who owned hundreds of vintage mid-level French bikes, bought over a lifetime to honor French craftsmanship and keeping them in the garden without riding or working on them. I realized then how vintage passion can be shared through very different approaches. There are many comments in the different threads here telling a lot about C&V members, including being a collector in a wide sense or about being a rider vs a wrencher, but I could not find a more global thread about vintage enthusiasts preferences in terms of riding, wrenching, collecting, etc. We all enjoy the vintage beauty and its epic, and I suppose to a certain extent most of us like to ride, work and own oldies bicycles. But what do you like most ? Do you prefer the joy of a ride on your old, shiny, charming steel machine? Or the hours spent working on rusty tubes and obsolete mechanics and the satisfaction of making them work? Or being delighted at your collection and the efforts made to get it?

I personally mostly enjoy repairing/wrenching and admiring the result of a finished restoration, sometimes riding and hopefully attending vintage events, with less interest in owning a collection.

Unlike a Western movie duel involving a good, a bad and a ugly, this is just a going around the table where all answers are good. So who are you ? a rider, a wrencher, a collector, none of the above, all of them or something else… ?
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